


Into the Grove

by Antimoany



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Fauns & Satyrs, Intoxication, blooming grove, foxfire grove, grove of the reincarnate, revel, wildclaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 09:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14422938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antimoany/pseuds/Antimoany
Summary: A wildclaw finds himself in a different kind of Grove.





	Into the Grove

[Fraxinella](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fflightrising.com%2Fmain.php%3Fdragon%3D28191238&t=ZmFjYjQwNmQ2ZWY0MjZmOGQ0OTVkYzM0Mzg4MWM1ZTYxMTgyMTMwMyxDTGtEVkJSdg%3D%3D&b=t%3A60TeJoN-Ej3HIX-Y3q7Ayw&p=http%3A%2F%2Fantimoany.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F164206098570%2Ffraxinella-paced-agitatedly-the-dragon-he-was&m=0) paced agitatedly. The dragon he was supposed to meet was already late enough that he’d grown hungry - and he'd eaten before he arrived here. Something glowing neon blue sped past him, followed by a dwindling trail of light, like sparks struck up between two stones. They drifted leisurely to the ground, in much the same manner as sparks tend not to do, and burst the instant they alighted upon soil or grass or fungi. Burst into a dozen smaller sparks that fizzled away into smoke.

Frax stepped aside, intending not to breathe it in. The neon thing returned, and circled about his head. He batted at it, but his claws slid through it like smoke. It was ice-cold inside, so cold it burned, and he withdrew his hand hastily, examining it for damage. The creature got the message, though, and fled further into the dense woods.

The wildclaw knew not to trust anything in the Foxfire Grove, certainly not something smaller than his own head and glowing impossibly blue, impossibly cold. Its freezing embers drifted to the ground and burst again into sparks and smoke, which wafted about him as the evening’s light breeze (was it always evening here? He was fairly certain it should be well beyond sunrise by now) struggled to decide which direction to gently blow in.

He stepped out of it, waving the cold smoke away with a wing. Something else darted past, small and furry, and Fraxinella leapt. Whatever it was would be his dinner…or breakfast. He was no longer certain.

His sharp teeth bit down on something painfully hard; scraped unbearably against dry rock as he struggled to stop himself closing his jaw. He released it, and ran his tongue along his teeth to assess the damage. None, that he could tell, though his gums screamed protest at the sudden shock.

The rock turned slowly, spared its erstwhile predator an unamused glare, then resumed its previous, leisurely pace. Frax stared after it until it had nearly disappeared between some thin, twisted trees. He admired his own rough, white toothmarks along its otherwise smooth and unmarred side. It briefly occurred to him that they may now have been blunted by the trauma.

As the rock turned out of view, the wildclaw made to follow it. In just a few short strides, he was where it had been…but was no longer. Was, in fact, no longer in view at all.

Fraxinella span around on the spot, carefully at first and then frantically. He examined nearby rocks. None were the right shape or size; none bore the marks of his mis-pounce. He twisted his neck this way and that, around and behind and before the trees it had turned past. He even looked up, and then shook his head briefly. Frax reminded himself that rocks couldn’t climb trees.

Frax paused, examining that thought. Could rocks, for that matter, walk? Now that he thought about it, he’d certainly never seen one do so before. He crouched down, examining a nearby rock with more intensity now. He lifted it up with care, as though afraid he might frighten it. Examining the bottom, he could see no sign of legs. But, then, snails didn’t have legs and they somehow moved. And the rock had indeed moved at the speed of a snail. Perhaps their locomotion was of a similar mechanism…whatever that was.

He placed it back in its original spot, and after a moment of deliberation, carefully rapped upon the top of it with his fighting claw. He paused, awaiting a response, and then tried again, harder. Still nothing.

Maybe not all rocks could walk.

Maybe that wasn’t a rock, he realised, and then wondered why that most obvious conclusion hadn’t occurred to him already.

Fraxinella turned to retrace his steps, back to the clearing he should have met his contact in several hours ago. As he moved away from the rock’s vanishing point, he was startled by a voice.

“Well, some people just have no manners.”

Frax turned, looked around. He saw no-one. Nothing alive at all, in fact, just the ever-shifting glowing lights of the Bramble and the trees that always looked darker and less alive than they really were. He sniffed: no scent of dragon. He couldn’t even catch a whiff of a beastclan.

He turned again to leave, when the voice piped up indignantly:

“Hah! A mockery!”

Frax whipped round at the exclamation. Still there was no-one there. Sensing - perhaps a little late given his current clime - trickery, he called out:

“What manner of beast are you?”

“ _Me_?” Chimed the voice almost musically. “Why, I’m no beast at all!”

The wildclaw peered closer at the space between the trees, seeing nothing. He inhaled deeply, flaring his nostrills, but all he could smell were the spores that clung thickly to the air in a manner that reminded him of the Ashfall Waste’s own thick air.

“A dragon?” He cried, thinking some might take offense at being called beast.

“Pah!” The voice spat. Frax thought he saw movement among the trees, and stalked closer. Whomever was playing this merry joke had chosen the wrong wildclaw.

“What then?”

“Oh, can’t you guess?” The voice sulked. There! Something definitely moved when it spoke.

“I dislike guessing!” Fraxinella yelled as he leapt at the movement, hindclaws forward to catch on the speaker’s hide…

Instead, he slammed legs-first into a tree. Both sets of claws dug deep into the bark, and be barely kept himself from instinctively wrapping his teeth around it. He could still taste stone.

“Awh, you’re no fun at all!” the voice wailed, and it sounded very nearby indeed. The tree Frax had affixed himself to bent double, displaying a remarkable amount of flexibility for a tree. Before he could dislodge himself, it sprang upright, launching the hapless wildclaw towards, and subsequently through, the forest’s thick canopy. He screeched indignantly, opening his wings in an attempt at putting a halt to his flight - but, as it was backwards, the sheer force of his own momentum pushed them closed again.

He landed with a soft crunch atop the canopy. The drake allowed himself a moment to recover from his plight before gathering his wits and making an attempt at standing. As he was precariously supported by an intricately interwoven set of branches and leaves, however, this was perhaps not the wisest move.

With a distinctly less soft crunch, he slipped through and onto the significantly distant floor below, into a pile of decaying debris. Said debris  _harrumphed_ loudly and shrugged, depositing him neatly onto what he desperately hoped was  _truly_  the ground.

Frax heaved a deep breath - noting, briefly, how much clearer the air was now - and with some considerable mental effort, heaved himself upright. He dusted himself down, which largely consisted of dislodging leaves, thorns, and something that glowed faintly blue from his person.

The light here was clearer, and the atmosphere generally less crowded. He must have been launched into a more open part of the Foxfire Grove. Though, he noted with some concern, this didn’t look like the Foxfire Grove. It didn’t smell like it, either. Less black, more brown. Still, there were mushrooms abound, both glowing and otherwise, which he considered to be a sure sign he was still  _somewhere_  in the Tangled Wood.

While the break he’d unintentionally created in the otherwise seamless canopy was theoretically enough to judge his position by the sun, he had no idea what time it was.

“Pardon me,” he said gently to the pile of rotting leaves he had recently vacated. He was loath to touch it unbidden; he had no idea what was sleeping in it.

“Well, I should think so!” the pile agreed.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked it, now confused.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” It retorted.

“Would you happen to know the time?” Frax asked the pile of debris, giving up on pleasantries.

“Hmm, sometime in the autumn I’d wager.” It mused.

“Don’t you know with any more specificity than that?” The dragon asked, now incredibly confused.

“Specificity?” The pile pondered. It sounded like there was something in its mouth. Frax had assumed it had been eating when he interrupted it, but this appeared to simply be a permanent affliction of its tone.

“If you please,” he told it impatiently.

“Ah, it is quite bright. It’s probably day.”

“…Probably?” He repeated with mild shock.

“Well, I try to keep an open mind,” the pile shrugged.

“Indeed. Thank you for your help,” Frax told it flatly, having given up on attempting to reason with what, he was beginning to suspect, may actually have been a pile of rotting leaves.

He hoped to avoid the Tangled Wood in future.

Deciding that there was nothing else for it, the dragon picked a direction arbitrarily and began to walk. Eventually he’d happen across a dragon who could, at the very least, give him a mildly more helpful indication of the time than “day”. Though, he pondered, that had been a rather abrupt day, considering how very recently it had been evening. And it had, indeed, been evening for a very long time. It seemed odd to him that a locale known for its shadows would skip night altogether.

The ground here was soft and plush, and when he examined it, Frax found a thick covering of lichen in shades of greens, blues, yellows, oranges, and reds. When he looked at length, he found differing varieties of lichen to be very starkly coloured, but as their fronds interwove, they developed apparent subtleties when viewed from a distance.

His stomach growled loudly, reminding him of how much longer it had been been since he last ate; since he’d last  _attempted_ to eat a rock, and then a tree. He really did need to find something slightly more substantial. He hadn’t brought snacks along to his meeting, having not expected it to take quite this long to not occur.

Fortunately, the lichen was so soft that tracks were more easily left in it, and he took to following some of these that looked small and probably belonged to something edible.

Among the reasons he disliked this place, Frax reflected as he hunted, was his complete inability to smell anything. Or, rather, his complete ability to smell  _everything_. There were a thousand scents here, all overlapping, and not only were they difficult to disentangle from one another, but they drowned out the subtler scents of a rabbit having passed by a few hours ago. Flowers bloomed aggressively in his nostrils; lush grasses demanded his attention. Some kind of mint assaulted his nasal cavities like ice, and every step he took disturbed polen and spores that drifted up and either made him sneeze or briefly exploded all of his senses at once.

With each breath of this strange lichen-dust he could hear more clearly the way pine needles brushed casually against each other as they drifted to the ground. He could see, in exquisite detail, the way the bark of a nearby tree shifted subtly as it breathed. He could feel the soft caress of the wind between the tines of his feathers. He could taste the thick, heady scent of rotting leaves, almost sickly-sweet on his oversensitive tongue as he panted, wide-mouthed, in some attempt at breathing without inhaling more of these overpowering floral scents…

Fraxinella could hear the gentle, lilting music of a wooden pipe. And, suddenly, he couldn’t hear anything else. It was so quiet, so faint, yet it was the only sound that reached his ears. He turned his head and paced slowly in its direction. For a time, it grew louder, until it sounded like he was right next to the musician…

And then it faded into obscurity, and within moments the din of the forest returned to his ears.

Frax searched madly, he wanted the pipe-music back. It was the only sound, it was such a  _beautiful_  sound. When he heard it, he couldn’t smell the rank stench of death, he couldn’t feel the way spores scraped inside his throat and lungs with every frantic breath he took.

In his desperate hunt, he burst into a clearing. And, for a moment, all was well. The sun shone directly on the verdant grass, unfiltered by some thick canopy. The air smelled clean and welcoming, like a summer’s morn. Dainty flowers, spots of pink or blue or purple, dotted the the thick grass, but the smell of them didn’t choke him.

Several figures reclined against one another in an intimate pile in the centre of the clearing. Having spotted the dragon, one such figure opened its arms in a welcoming gesture. Frax obliged, stepping forth to join the pile. The figure wrapped itself around him; it was warm, and furry, though some of it held bare skin. Its arms reminded him of a centaur’s. Was this a pile of centaurs? Centaurs didn’t sleep like this…centaurs were bigger than this.

More arms embraced him. He felt warm, comfortable, and content.

His stomach growled. Frax remembered that he was hungry.

As if in response, a figure stood and proffered to him a veritable bounty of small, shiny green beans. Despite himself, and in great part thanks to his growing hunger, the wildclaw selected one between two claws and placed it with care into his mouth.

It was  _delicious_.

He happily ate the beans until he felt his stomach migh burst, then rejoined his soft, warm friends in their pile and slept a more peaceful, more absolute sleep than he had ever experienced.

Frax awoke to a new sound. Faint, but not distant. The sound, unmistakably, of laughter. His furry friends had awoken to it, too, and were stretching themselves and standing up. He could see now that their lower halves did superficially resemble centaurs, or perhaps more accurately, deer. They talked among themselves, ate the beans, and laughed; but it wasn’t their laughter the dragon could hear. That was different.

A fox, brilliant green and adorned with enough flowers that he at first mistook it for a bush, stood at the entrance to the clearing that he had earlier broken through. It chortled merrily, maw wide in an earnest grin. When it saw that he had spotted it, it winked, and dove into the grass as one might dive into a deep pool of water. It did not resurface.

Remembering himself, Frax asked of his hosts:

“Excuse me, but do any of you know which part of the Foxfire Bramble we’re in?”

The fauns looked at one another in confusion. As one, they shook their heads.

“Do you have any idea where we are at all?” the dragon tried.

One faun broke from the group and reached up to grasp the wildclaw firmly by the shoulders. He looked Frax directly in the eye.

“ _Here_ ,” he intoned, sincerely. He hugged Frax warmly, as though they were dear friends who hadn’t seen one another in an age. Then he released him, and began to dance.

Frax thought it a strange thing, to dance to no music. But as the other fauns joined in, he began to hear the music.

It was enchanting, and like nothing he’d ever heard an instrument make. Somewhere between morning birdsong and the kind of music one imagines the stars must make, if one only knew how to listen. The music carried a merry tune, to which the fauns danced, but Frax could hear something below that, lower, softer, in longer and slower notes.

He tried to listen to it, but the bounce of the faun’s many hoofs on the thick grass and the clap of skin on skin as they playfully slammed into one another drew his mind to the merry jaunt, and his legs bid him join in before his mind had entirely signed off on the action.

It was good fun, to dance and frolick in the pure sunlight, to link arms with good friends and enjoy good company. He danced until his legs were sore and the grass was trampled flat, his tail held high so long the muscles at the base of his spine had stiffened. His wings had flapped jovially for so great a time that he felt he’d flown the entire distance of Sornieth in a single stretch.

The revel died down, with one faun after another dropping, exhausted, onto the now-flattened grass. Frax soon joined them and they curled together, sleeping off their exhaustion until it was once again time to eat. As he enjoyed his meal of beans, Frax was sure he could see that same fox laughing at him again, but once again, it dove into the flat grass with a teasing wink.

Frax paid it no mind, and when his friends began to dance, he danced with them. They linked arms, pacing circles and singing in a language the dragon didn’t understand, and didn’t need to. More friends peeled themselves from the trees. Their skin was rough and their fingers long, but their voices were perfect, like listening to the notes of blooming roses or the whimsical songs of content forests. These new friends led the dance, and together Frax and his companions frolicked merrily out of the clearing, into the depths of the Blooming Grove.

* * *

And that, hatchlings, is why you should never follow the sound of music in the forest.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A breif explanation on how many dragons find themselves in the Grove of the Reincarnate. Because the Grove tends to overlap with the Blooming Grove, we pick up the unfortunates the fauns choose to dance with.


End file.
